Hate
by Em Mindelan
Summary: "He wants to hate her, but he can't." Vaughn POV, Season One angst.


TITLE - Hate  
SUMMARY - "He wants to hate her, but he can't." Vaughn POV angst, S1.  
RATING - PG, probably.   
SHIP - S/V.  
TIMEPERIOD - Anytime after "The Confession".  
  
This is a challenge fic requiring the use of these three elements - Flowers, a baseball match, and a quote from a famous movie. The quote/s can be found at the end of this piece.****

**Hate**

He stands in front of a flower stall, looking at the roses [_every __colour_ of the rainbow_] in the bright buckets before him._

He wonders if he should buy her some flowers [_it's Valentine's Day, after all]._

He _wants_ to buy her some flowers.

Then again, he wants to do a lot of things for her [_with her]._

He wants to hug her, kiss her, kiss her better when she's sick or in pain or crying because of the lies she's forced to live. He wants to take her to a hockey game, and then go home with her afterwards. He wants to introduce her to his mother. He wants to spend the entire day with her in bed, just enjoying her presence beside his, the warmth of her body beside his, feeding each other breakfast in bed….He wants to be a part of her life.

But he knows he can't, because she lives a life of lies, and he's the one part of her world that's completely true, and to bring him into her life is to risk contaminating the truth with lies [_because eventually they would find out, eventually she would have to lie about him in order to save him_], and she can't risk that.

He's angry about that [_it's selfish, but he can't help it_], angry that she can tell him that he can't be a part of her world [_she's never told him that, but actions speak louder than words_] because she wants to keep him safe from the lies that imprison her. He resents this more than anyone could possibly understand [_she tries to protect me, but it's my job to protect her/I don't need protecting/why can't she let me in?_].

He looks at the flowers, and he sighs. 

  
The flowers are everything he wants [_beauty/purity/innocence/untouched/true/real_] and everything he can't have [_denied/dangerous/forbidden…CIA protocol frowns on coworkers buying presents for one another_]….everything he knows he cannot have.

But that doesn't make looking at them [_looking, never buying, not even for __Alice__, because he doesn't love her anymore…doesn't think he ever did love her, really…not the way he loves her] any easier._

* * *

Later that night, at the warehouse, he can't help but be a little angry, a little sullen with her. It's cruel, he knows, and she probably doesn't understand why he doesn't smile tonight, but he can't help it.

_Don't make me love you, he begs of her silently. __Don't make me like this._

He had a normal life before her. 

He had a girlfriend who he was reasonably happy with [_maybe they would have eventually got married, maybe not. I thought I loved her. Now I'm not so sure], a job that wasn't really all that different from any other government job, except sometimes his work required him to sign documents signing his life away if he ever told anyone about what he was working on._

He had family that he didn't feel guilty visiting [_how can I look my mother in the face, knowing that I love the daughter of the woman who killed her husband?], and he had friends [__friends who didn't tell him "Trust is a tricky thing,", friends who weren't in the habit of getting shot by ex-KGB spies, friends who I could have a good time with and not be constantly worrying about what she's doing], and he had a reasonably normal life._

But the first time he met her, he knew that she would break his heart [_I fell in love with her, against my own wishes, and the good advice of my brain, the moment I saw her, with that red hair, bleeding, crying, in tears, missing teeth]._

She was wrong for him in every single way.

She was a brunette [_I'd always dated blondes before_].

She was part of the CIA [_I liked to keep my work life professional, and my personal life private_].

She was the daughter of the woman who killed his father. [_sometimes he looks into her eyes and he can see the eyes of a killer staring back]_

She was dangerous, elusive, in pain….she was everything he'd never had [_never thought he'd wanted], and everything he was rapidly beginning to want to need._

She ruined his life when she entered it. And for that he would hate her, if he didn't love her so much.

He watches her watch him, and he wants to tell her to stop watching him, stop looking at him with those deep liquid brown eyes that he thinks he could drown in given a chance, stop making him want to kiss her, stop making him wonder what she's wearing under that dress [_is she doing something this Valentine's Day? Where's she going? Who is she meeting? Who is she wearing that dress for?_], stop making him love her.

He wants to tell her to stop looking at him._ [_I hate it when you stare.]____

He wants to, but he can't. 

He wants to hate her, but he can't.

He wants to be able to push her away, wants to live a normal life again, but he knows he can't.

He wants to hold her in his arms. But he can't.

He wants to take her to a hockey game. But he can't.

Just like he can't stop looking at her, like she can't stop looking at him.

He wants to tell her what Weiss told him today [_he thinks we're sleeping together…nothing could be further from the truth, I thought, but apparently there's even an office pool…I had felt like punching someone, punching something after that conversation], but he can't [_I don't know how she'd react, whether she'd be infuriated, or almost flattered or just cold or if I would end up kissing her and giving the people something really to talk about_]_

They suspect everything, but what they suspect is nothing because he hates the fact that he loves her, and he loves the fact that he loves her, and he doesn't want to love her and he does and he wants her and needs her more than he has ever needed anything in his life.

They suspect everything. But they know nothing.

* * *

Later that night, he sees a sign for tickets to a hockey match.

But he can't bring himself to buy them. 

Hockey's his favourite game [_his first true love, his mother jokes], but ever since he's met her, he's had less of an interest in it….it reminds him of her [_he wants to take her to a hockey match and come home with her after the game/you're a Kings fan, aren't you? /we should go to a game sometimes_] and of the promise they made [__Hockey can wait]._

He goes to a baseball match instead.

  
Baseball doesn't remind him of her, and it's a welcome relief to just be another face in the stands, cheering on the team. It's normal [_no wonder it doesn't remind me of her] but it's not real [_because she's not there_]._

He hates the game.

But he stays anyway.

The moment he leaves, he thinks of her again, and he sighs [_he can't make her go away, __she's under his skin, in his blood, his air – everything he does, every move he makes, reminds him of her]._

He hates what she does to him.

  
But he loves her.

Loves her so much that he thinks he'd sell his soul [_give up everything he has] for her if she asked._

* * *

He stands at a flower stand, and he buys a flower [_a single yellow tulip, signifying hopeless love]._

He throws it away.

He hates the way he loves her, hates the way she makes him feel.

He hates so much about her [_wrecked his perfect life, his perfect, normal, real world, made him feel things he shouldn't, have emotions he couldn't_].

_[But mostly he hates the way he doesn't hate her, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.]_

**END**


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